


Home Is Where Your Heart Is Set In Stone

by little_loving_lefty



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caring sweet Stiles, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Late Night Phone Calls, Lydia has been thinking too much, Much needed talking, Post-Eichen Rescue, post 5x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 11:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_loving_lefty/pseuds/little_loving_lefty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia has a lot on her mind, especially after her rescue from Eichen House. She knows that 1:30 in the morning may not be the most ideal time to call anyone, but there’s a certain someone she needs to talk to before she goes crazy thinking about it all.</p><p>Or… What I think should have happened after 5x16 “Lie Ability”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Where Your Heart Is Set In Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Finally… I finally finished this! So this was an idea that I had stuck in my head soon after I watched 5x16. It took me a good three weeks or so to write this out, but I put a lot of work into it during that time. I really wanted to explore what it might have been like with Lydia talking to Stiles about her rescue and how she felt about him, but not quite admitting it outright. It may seem a bit OOC because I’m not very good at keeping to certain characters that I have obviously not created or written much of before. Thank you so much to [A](http://archiveofourown.org/users/redstringstydias) for being an amazing beta reader for this work and for also being the person I bounced so many ideas off of for this!!!! Go check out her works! They are so well written!

Lydia Martin hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a mysterious dark colored stain in the right-most corner of her ceiling. The stain would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t been put on bed rest to further her recovery. She was starting to dislike being stuck in her room most of the day. There wasn’t much to do, aside from watching T.V., sleeping, the occasional walk around the house to stretch her aching muscles, and staring at parts of her ceiling for hours on end with only her thoughts to accompany her. 

It had been three long days since the pack had rescued their favorite banshee from the hellhole known as Eichen House. Thinking was something that Lydia had been doing a lot of during those three days. She thought about everything; she kept replaying horrible memories of Valack and what he had done to her. She remembers her mom coming to visit her at the beginning of her time in Eichen and reassuring her that everything would be just fine. She recalled the horrible pain she was in while stuck inside that basement room and throughout most of her rescue. There was one thing in particular though that she just couldn’t get off her mind. The same something she currently had on her mind.

_Stiles. ___

In the first couple days of her recovery, the pack visited her to see how she was doing and keep her company. During one of their check-ins, Stiles couldn’t come with them and Lydia decided to get the entire story of her rescue from Scott and the others. Scott told her that Stiles had been there through so much of it and he had visited her not long after she was admitted, begging her to wake up. Kira gushed about how he played a key role in devising most of the plan. Scott also explained that his best friend had stolen a key card from one of the orderlies and when things went array during the plan, Stiles did everything in his power to get to her, including making the grudging decision to let Theo help him. She couldn’t help but smile as her friends relayed every bit of information they had.

Lydia sighed heavily. The more she thought about Stiles, the more she realized just how much she wanted to talk to him. Sure, they had spoken to each other when he visited with the pack, but it was mostly small talk. It was the exact same thing she shared with the others; get wells and hopes that she got better soon so that she could be back with them along with updates on her favorite shows and her school work and the threats they were currently facing. It was nice to discuss those things, but none of it was even close to what she wanted to talk to him about. What was it that she wanted to talk with him about exactly? The question was something she found herself asking herself a lot. She didn’t have an answer quite yet, but she didn’t need one tonight. She just knew this couldn’t wait any longer. 

Rolling onto her side, Lydia glanced at the clock on her bedside table. The glowing bright red numbers read 1:36 am. Her gaze wandered to her cell phone that was charging next to it. She bit her lip, trying to decide whether or not what she was about to do was a good idea.

“Screw it,” she muttered quietly, reaching for the phone. She knew the number by heart and her fingers tapped swiftly at the keypad. Before she could change her mind, the line was ringing.

The call was picked up halfway through the second ring. 

A low, sleep-garbled voice spoke on the other line. “Hello?”

“Uh…” Lydia paused, suddenly unsure of what to say. “Hey.”

“Lydia? What are you doing up this late? Are you okay?” Stiles sounded worried and certainly more awake than he had been five seconds ago.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just can’t sleep,” she murmured. “Um, I’m sorry for calling you this late… I mean early.” She laughed, suddenly nervous. “Do you… Do you have some time to  
talk?”

Lydia’s voice shook a little as she spoke. Her cheeks were flushed with nervous heat and she couldn’t sit still. She didn’t understand why she was reacting like this. This was Stiles she was talking to. This was her best friend. Why was she so nervous to talk to him?

“Yeah, of course I do. Are you sure you’re alright?”

A smile tugged at her lips. If there was one thing she could always count on Stiles for, it was being there for her. “Yes Stiles. I’m okay. I promise. Actually…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Can…Can you come over?”

“Um.” She heard him falter and wondered if she had made a mistake. “Yeah. Sure thing Lyds. I’ll be there in a few minutes. You sit tight, alright?”

She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. Not yet, at least. “I will. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to get out of bed?” he asked. “It’s pretty dark and you could trip and…”

She laughed at the concern in his voice. “Okay. The back door’s unlocked. You can just come right up when you get here.”

“That sounds like a much better idea. Wait. Why is your back door unlock- You know what? I’m not even going to ask.”

A soft laugh escaped Lydia’s lips. “You already did, but it’s better to leave the answer for another day. I’ll see you when you get here. Bye Stiles.”

“Bye Lydia.”

* * *

Stiles knew that it usually took ten minutes to get from his house to hers but he made it there in five. Just before he pulled into her driveway, he turned off the Jeep’s headlights. He shut the car door over as carefully as he could, with only a small click to be heard. Because as much as he loved Natalie Martin right now, he did not want her waking up. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t live to see the light of day again if she did.

Getting inside the house quietly was easier said than done, especially for someone as blatantly gawky as Stiles. After opening the back door with a loud squeak that sounded like a bomb, stepping on every creaky floorboard present in her living room, and nearly tripping up the staircase, he finally found himself in front of her bedroom door. He lifted a hand to knock but hesitated at the last second.

He was nervous. He had been for the entire drive over. He was pretty sure his heart had almost stopped when she asked him to come over. They hadn’t gotten a real chance to talk about what had happened in Eichen and at the animal clinic, and he assumed that’s what she wanted to talk about now. He already knew that Scott and the others had given her a pretty detailed description of what went down (thanks to the fact that his best friend couldn’t keep anything from him), but there were things that needed to be discussed between the two of them. He hadn’t thought he would be doing it at two in the morning in her bedroom.

_There might not be a better time to do this though ___, he thought to himself. Who knew when they would have time to sit down and talk without another threat taking up every minute of their time? So he took a deep breath and tapped his knuckles gently against the door.

“Hey Lyds. It’s just me.” Stiles poked his messy brown mop around the edge of the door.

Lydia lifted her head, several stands of her strawberry blonde curls falling across her face. A couple magazines now lay forgotten on the bed in front of her. As soon as she met  
Stiles’ gaze, her emerald eyes lit up and she smiled.

“Oh! Hey. You can come in.”

He did as she said, closing the door quietly behind him. He gave her a small smile in return. He didn’t realize he was staring at her though until she called his name curiously.

“Stiles?”

“Hmmm?” He blinked, breaking his small trance to see her watching him.

“Come here.”

Scooting over a couple inches from where she sat, Lydia made just enough room for Stiles to fit on the bed. She patted the empty spot to her right, motioning for him to join her. He made his way over and sat down.

“So…” He glanced at the magazines she had forgotten about as soon as he walked in. “What are you reading?”

“Oh. It’s just a couple issues of Vogue my mom picked up for me. She’s been trying to keep me busy while I’m housebound. Between her, everyone visiting, and all the homework  
I’ve had to catch up on, I’ve stayed pretty entertained these last few days.” He noted that she said this with a hint of sarcasm.

“That reminds me. I have some more work for you from your math teacher. I, uh, I actually took a look at it. I didn’t understand a single problem on the sheet. I figured you would though. Because you’re a genius and all.”

Lydia smirked at his compliment. “Which is exactly why I’ll be winning a Field’s Medal one day. Don’t you forget it.”

She playfully nudged his arm and laughed. His heart skipped a beat and the butterflies in his stomach were doing somersaults. It wasn’t every day that he got to see Lydia Martin smirk or hear her pretty laugh.

“How could I forget Lyds? You remind me every day by just being you.”

He turned to look at her and smiled. His eyes held the same gentleness that played across his lips. She caught the corners of her lips lifting up into their own soft smile in return. It slowly faded though as a small headache began to throb near her temple. She raised a hand to rub her forehead, her fingers making circles over her temples. 

Stiles frowned. “How have you been feeling?”

Lydia looked up to meet his concerned gaze. “A lot better actually. I tend to get a headache every now and then. They aren’t that bad though and the doctors said I’ll heal just fine.” 

Stiles’ smile returned as she spoke. “That’s good. Scott told me he filled you in on what happened.” He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. “He can’t really keep anything from me.”

“Yeah. He did. He told me you worked with Theo to find where Valack had taken me.” 

“Oh yeah?” He raised his eyebrows. “That was the fun part. I learned Theo is actually the most cooperative person to work with. Did everyone else know this? I was left out of the loop again, wasn’t I?”

Lydia giggled quietly. He beamed at her, the sound of her small laugh causing his heart to skip a little beat yet again.

“He, um… He also told me you took the lead in rescuing me.” She glanced away for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Stiles’ smile faded quickly. It was instantly replaced by a look of shock and slight panic. His hand immediately found its way to the back of his neck, where he rubbed back and forth awkwardly. He opened and closed his mouth until complete words finally escaped from his lips. 

“Uh…Yeah I guess I um- I may have done a l-little bit. It wasn’t anything super… um… important, you know, not like what Scott and the others did to help. They did all the cool stuff and I just stole a key car-”

“Stiles.” Lydia’s stern tone completely cut off his rambling. When she had his attention, the soft smile returned to light up her face. “I’m alive, thanks to you.”

Her words caught him off guard. He sat there, blinking in disbelief. It took him a minute to recover. Once he did, he steeled his nerves and looked her in the eye. He hesitantly reached for one of her tiny hands, covering it with both of his own. He gently stroked his thumbs over her soft skin, creating circle after circle as he went. She let her gaze wander down to where their hands rested on his thigh.

“Lydia,” Stiles’ gentle tone caused her to look up, her green eyes meeting his whiskey-brown ones. “I would do everything I did and more a hundred times over if it meant you were safe.”

A tight smile appeared on Lydia’s lips as she pursed them happily. Stiles smiled back, soft and sweet. His eyes were full of something Lydia couldn’t quite put her finger on. She had seen it there before, especially when he rescued her and after she had almost died. She glanced back down at their hands when she found she couldn’t hold his gaze any longer. She focused on how his hands were large and warm around hers, how the skin underneath his knuckles were rough and calloused and the way his fingertips skimmed softly over the back of her hand. As she continued to watch, her fingers slowly wiggled their way between his. Their hands folded together almost perfectly when she finally intertwined her tiny one with his.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly into the silence of the room. 

Without any warning, he removed his left arm from hers and wrapped around her shoulders tenderly. He gently guided her body toward his until she was leaning against his chest. He propped himself up against her pillows and the headboard to support them. She tensed up for a moment, slightly taken aback by the sudden gesture. She quickly realized what was happening though and slipped her other arm around him, squeezing him back. She quietly laid her head against his chest. Her hair cascaded across his shoulder in delicate strawberry blonde waves. Stiles could smell the lavender shampoo she liked to use and the sweet scent tickled his nose. Her ear was pressed just above his heart and she could hear it, and feel it, beating fast and hard against her cheek. If she had to admit it, hers had acquired and almost synched to the same rhythm and tempo that his had taken up.

Lydia sighed as she nestled deeper into Stiles’ embrace. He was warm and comfortable and smelled faintly of the outdoors and musk and some other spice, the name of which she didn’t care to remember at the moment. He felt like home and that made her feel safe in his arms. She had never felt that way with anyone else, not with Jackson, not with Aiden, not with a single one of the guys she had dated before them. With him, everything felt right. That thought scared her a little, but the fear slowly subsided, especially when Stiles began to rub her arm. 

She untangled their fingers to briefly pick at a string on his flannel. As she rubbed the blue fabric between her fingers, she thought about the color and what he used it for on the string board they often found themselves using to solve things. She suddenly had a burning question on the tip of her tongue.

“Hey Stiles?”

“Hmm?” His attention was on her now. Not that it was ever on anything else when she was around.

“What color are your feelings for me?”

Lydia swore she could feel Stiles’ heart skip a beat beneath her cheek.

“What do you mean?” She glanced up to see his face. He seemed genuinely confused. His eyebrows were furrowed and a frown pulled down at the corners of his lips.

“Remember your string colors? On the board you use when things need to be solved? You told me once that you use red for unsolved cases, yellow was for things that needed to be determined, and you had green connected to anything that was solved.”

“Yeah. I remember that. I also said blue was just pretty,” he added warmly.

“You also said blue was just pretty, yes.” She glanced away, trying to avoid eye contact with him when she spoke again. “So… What color are your feelings for me? I know you had feelings for me before… I was just wondering if you still had them,” she muttered, biting her lip.

Stiles didn’t answer for a moment. He sat there with his mouth open, trying to form a coherent thought. Finally, he took a deep breath. When he noticed she was trying to look anywhere but at him, he reached up and placed his fingers gently on her chin, turning her face toward him.

“I’m going to have to go with green.”

She released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding.

“Yeah?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. What would you, um… say yours is for me?”

She rested her cheek back against his chest.

“Well…” She paused for effect. “I was thinking purple, or gray, or maybe even orange…”

“What? Those aren’t even colors I use!”

She gave a breathy laugh and smiled. “But I decided green is the best color instead.”

There was another pause, this time a quiet that weighed heavily with what they were really saying.

Stiles was the first to break the silence. “Yeah?”

Lydia sighed. She nodded into his shirt. “Yeah.”

Allowing her eyes to flutter shut, she decided to enjoy the stillness that came over the two of them. The only real sounds to be heard were their slow and steady breaths, and for Lydia, his heartbeat. Even though there hadn’t been a direct “I love you” from either of them, their confession held the same weight. She didn’t want to ruin the moment though, and neither did he. So they stuck with what had been said and laid there, her head resting on his chest, in comfortable silence.

They would have stayed that way for a while longer if it wasn’t for Stiles’ phone suddenly buzzing on the bed in front of them, causing them both to jump. He reached forward to check the text message that he received while she shuffled back.

“Oh,” he muttered. “It’s just Scott. Not sure why he’s texting me at nearly 3:30 in the morning. Speaking of which…” He paused tentatively. “It’s rather late. I should probably get going.”

“Can you stay?” she murmured quickly, stopping him as he went to get off the bed.

The question came out of nowhere. A soon as it left her lips, she wondered why she had asked it. She couldn’t come up with a good reason. She knew hadn’t been sleeping very well the past couple nights. Maybe she figured she would sleep better if he stayed? It didn’t matter to begin with why she had asked. A small part of herself doubted he’d agree to it. Her heart stayed in her throat as she waited for him to answer.

It took her a minute to realize how quiet it had gotten in her room. She looked up to see him watching her. He didn’t look taken aback like she had been expecting him to. Instead, he wore a rather fond expression as he looked at her. His lips curved slightly into a tender smile and his whiskey colored eyes were soft. It was a look that she recognized almost immediately. It was the look he had given her countless times before when she was doubting herself or her abilities. She remembered that day in his bedroom when she had been lying on his bed and he had looked at her with the same expression while he reassured her that she was right about Barrow being at the school.

“Of course I can stay Lyds. You know I won’t leave you unless you want me to.” He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to her forehead.

The pair drifted off to sleep together that night. Lydia nestled herself comfortably against Stiles’ chest. Stiles wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Before she fell asleep listening to his steady breathing and gentle beat of his heart, she knew she didn’t want to be anywhere else but in his arms. She didn’t want to be with anyone else. She wanted him. But she would leave actually saying that for when they spoke in the morning. With that final thought, she sighed and finally let the sweet bliss of sleep take her.

It was arguably the best sleep both Lydia and Stiles had gotten all week.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have idea for another Stydia fic, so keep on the lookout for that within the next few weeks! I hope you guys enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to review, leave a comment, or whatever! I really appreciate those!


End file.
